Tag: leaves

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05/13/2022 garden checkup

Sweet basil seedlings.
Butterfly milkweed is up in the backyard too but hasn’t flowered yet (same as front yard).
Yellow flax still blooming! It’s annual, so I hope the seeds like it enough here.
Whitlow-wort gone to seed. Another native annual from TX home.
False gaura that I planted from potted last night is doing well.
Texas verbena has bloomed! It’s a perennial.
The rattlebox had adorable seed pods as promised.
The Rocky mountain bee plant from the botany club plant sale is blooming! There were ants at the blooms.
The Phacelia is really fun.
The prairie bluet is flowering a bit. I’m worried since it’s early that this means it’s not happy. However, it’s a perennial, so hopefully it will do its thing now and be less worried next year.
The twice-moved yucca is making new little leaves!
This yucca is in the shade which I figure is probably okay at this age.  Many plants seem to like to have nurse plants.
The baby winecups are starting to get true leaves.
Second year for this mystery plant with no blooms.
It does have a square stem. Abby suggested Monarda, which I did seed here at one point, so fingers crossed!!
Slippery silk beans and several other varieties are up!!
The two leaf senna didn’t have a lot of roots when I planted it from a pot last night. So, I put two containers of water so it would gradually keep it damp for now so it can get established. It’s my only sprout from the seed and I love this plant! It’s a host for Cloudless Sulphur butterflies.
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05/13/2022 world’s most adorable banana spider and other friends

The featured adorable tiny baby banana spider (Argiope aurantica). They are also known as garden spiders. That’s more common, but I prefer banana spider.
A tiny spider has caught a stilt bug. Mom, do you remember what these ones with the messy webs were called? The plant is a native Euphorbia.
Here’s an ant and a living stilt bug. I think it’s a Maximilian sunflower leaf they’re on, but I don’t know why I would have put one in this little pot. We’ll see.
A bombyliid bee fly on the coreopsis out front.
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04/26 and 04/28 assorted

The Tupperware experiment Ashy Sunflowers have a few more sprouts as of 04/26. I need to move them more carefully as the last two I tried to plant promptly shriveled up and died.
Texas mallow coming up!
The other individual of Texas mallow coming up!
Now on 04/28, an Ashy Sunflower actually sprouting from seed! I believe this was one that got stratified.
04/28 rock garden is looking good.
Penstemon grandiflorus from prairiemoon.com as bare root seems to be growing!
The Astragalus (ground plum) not looking as good again.
Finishing up the 04/28 pics, the culinary sage is blooming in the rainbow garden!
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Tuesday night and it might rain

American beautyberry leaves aren’t quite as pathetic?
The Maximilian sunflower roots we moved in winter are VERY happy.
Zizia sp from Abby are perking up!
It doesn’t smell like mint – maybe New Jersey tea I planted last year??
Agastache sp. from seed from Paula.
Bag traps cat, baffles cat’s emotional support dog.
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Sunday garden check up

Blue flax seedlings are getting tiny new leaves.
Possibly a false gaura! It looks different from the common volunteers!
Two Datura wrightii seedlings!
A senna hopeful.
It is actually a bit rough, so maybe this is the rough leaf sunflower??
A redbud I potted up last year.
The Euphorbia from Mom and Dad’s house is perking back up.
Roman chamomile did well while I was gone!
Lettuce and bok choy doing good.
Two more fluttermill Missouri primrose seedlings up!
The horse crippler cactus transplanted from Mom’s garden.
I’ve put a drip on the ground plum (actually a legume) since yesterday, as it seems to be having a rough transplant. This is also into the rock garden.
In the rainbow garden, a mystery seedling. Maybe two leaf senna???
Butterfly milkweed is coming up in rainbow garden.
Maybe another butterfly milkweed? It’s in the right place.
A single cilantro seedling. The only one in the yard. In that crack.
A winecup from two years ago.
Purple prairie clover from two years ago.
Maybe Liatris leaves? It’s in the right spot.
Another mystery seedling.
Tall vervain is perking up a bit.
Ten petal anemone are perking up too!
Greeneyes getting bigger!
My blue stars are blooming!
Salvia azurea leaves.
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Dixon Water Foundation morning

Bladderpod with small native bee
For someone who is probably growing this fellow’s relative, I sure have a hard time identifying cacti. I believe it’s Coryphantha sulcata based on having one central spine per areole. Here’s my baby.
Mom looks at photos she is taking.
Mom takes more photos.
It’s a magnificent creek!
Bubbles on moss.
Neat rocks the creek goes through.
A mournful thyris moth. We saw more in redbud flowers. I think it may have been getting water here, because if you zoom in you can see its proboscis out.
A cricket frog!
Another big view. You can see a redbud in the woods.
Englemann daisies growing above the creek! They’re much smaller than the ones in my garden. Presumably less water.
A white bush honeysuckle (a native one, Lonicera albiflora) branches over the creek.
This is probably a hawthorn shrub. Thanks to Abby for the suggestion that helped me look it up! There seem to be a lot of very similar species.
Here’s the probably-hawthorn trunk.
This seems familiar.
Ah ha!  A Missouri fluttermill primrose!  Note the red speckled and sort of square long flower bud.
An old seed pod at the base of the primrose plant. The leaves are much less red than the ones in my garden.
Ceanothus herbaceus, redroot or New Jersey tea.
Here are the leaves. I am growing its relative C. americanus (also called New Jersey tea) in my garden, from seeds bought from prairiemoon.com.
Blue flax!  It’s probably Linum pratense, which is an annual.  Apparently it does intergrade with the perennial Linum lewisii which is what I planted in my yard.
This flax hasn’t bloomed but you can see the leaves are very like the L. lewsii ones in my yard.
Another Englemann daisy demonstrates how adaptable this species is, growing up on the barrens away from the creek.
Just to the left, just below the middle of this picture is another fluttermill.
Cymopterus, a very early blooming wildflower, starts to go to seed.
I think this must be a much younger fluttermill Missouri primrose that has already bloomed.
This is prairie burnet.  I’d never noticed it before.  Thanks to Abby for the identification!
Yellow star grass (not actually a grass).
Another fluttermill primrose, this time in a big beautiful mound.
The face of abandonment.
Another dog who didn’t get to go.
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Vacation! Days 1 and 2

Day 1: arrival

Wow!!! Gracie!!!!!
A male Black-chinned Hummingbird. Mom says they arrived recently.
Greeneyes! A nice big rosette to compare to my baby greeneyes in the garden. Mom says the crenate leaf edge is pretty distinctive.
It was over 90°F. Warm for fluffy.

Day 2: Wednesday.

This cluster of tulips is probably nearly 30 years old. Not bad for an “replant this every year” bulb.
Lots of frogs singing at night!
A fringed puccoon blooming. After looking at the veins and the curled under edge, I think my mystery plants in yard are not puccoon.
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Two steps forward, two steps back??

Saturday night (yesterday) planting more tomato and pepper seeds of varieties that haven’t sprouted well or I accidentally killed of sunscald (see end of post).
Yesterday, Mom and Dad sent me this cute little indoor fern friend and Paula added the little frog clip on top!
His Doggie outside yesterday, Gram had to curl tragically on her rope toy.
Couscous, venison roast, and shakshuka with the first indoor garden tomato (dwarf Audrey’s Love).
The cover radishes (Sparkler variety bought in bulk from Ellison’s feed store) have begun sprouting and the transplanted Viola bicolor aren’t dead yet. I just have to hope they will bloom and seed.
More of the radishes. The goal here is growing enough stuff to keep plants I don’t want out until I can get a ground cover started. (Friday)
The Mexican plum from home is alive! (Friday)
Thursday night, Wes wanted to look at things in yard with our new blacklight.
These (already hatched) eggs on the rock outside glow!
The porch loofahs are very welcoming.
Found more googly eyes just randomly in the raised beds.
While we were outside I examined the angry tomato seedlings.
I have determined that going from inside the house to the front porch every day is giving them sun scald, as the leaves are turning white but newer growth is a nice healthy green. So for now I’m putting them in the less intense backyard and that seems to be helping the survivors.
Same thing happening here, green new leaves with white, dying burnt leaves.
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Field trip of spring

Happy dog heading home from Saxon Park
I think this is a Mexican plum.
Leaves of same tree.
A falcate orangetip butterfly visited this plant!
Mom suggested an identification of Cardamine parvifolia. Thanks Mom!
It is apparently a host plant for the orangetip.
Chickasaw plum blooming!
Paula gave me a combination garden tote/seat/knee pad. Pets investigate.
Briar displays the seat mode.
Gram examines the knee pad mode.
Gram refuses to go for a ride in the rolling tote part.